Typical rotary mowers have a horizontally oriented mower deck mounted on wheels for movement along the ground and a horizontally oriented rotating blade mounted under the deck and driven by a gearbox mounted on the deck and connected to the power take-off of a towing tractor.
Wider rotary mowers typically include a center deck with right and left wing decks pivotally attached to the center deck about horizontal wing pivot axes oriented substantially in alignment with an operating travel direction of the mower. One or more rotating blades is mounted under each deck. In such mowers with multiple blades the blades overlap somewhat so that vegetation across the entire width of the mower is cut. Typically each blade is mounted forward or rearward of adjacent blades so that the circle described by the path of one blade extends laterally beyond the circular path of the adjacent blade.
For transport the wing decks can be pivoted up about the wing pivot axes to a generally vertical transport position. U.S. Pat. No. 5,113,640 to Colistro discloses such a mower apparatus.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,209,946 to Neudorf et al. discloses very wide a mower apparatus with a center mower deck, inner wing decks attached to sides of the center deck and outer wing decks attached in turn to outer edges of the inner wing decks. For transport front ends of the wing decks move upward and then the wing decks trail rearward.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,070,938 to Winget discloses a frame with a plurality of individual mower units, each comprising a mower deck mounted on wheels and a rotating blade under the deck. The mower assemblies are mounted on a laterally extending frame with wings that raise vertically for transport. To avoid the usual problems with tractor driven mechanical drivelines each mower is driven electrically by a tractor driven generator.
United States Published Patent Application Number 2004/0148917 of Eastwood discloses a system similar to that of Winget, with individual electric driven mower units attached to a laterally extending tool bar.
Ground engaging tools such as harrows, packers, and the like are typically mounted on tool bars with wing sections that extend laterally perpendicular to the operating travel direction when in the operating position, and then trail rearward when in the transport position. U.S. Pat. No. 4,821,809 to Summach and U.S. Pat. No. 9,351,437 to Friesen et al. disclose different versions of such tool bars. These tool bars are rotated from a first orientation where the ground engaging tools attached thereto extend rearward and engage the ground, to a second orientation where the ground engaging tools attached thereto extend upward such that the wings may be moved to the rearward trailing transport position. As a further option known in the art, U.S. Pat. No. 7,581,597 to Neudorf et al. discloses instead to fold the wings forward instead of rearward for transport.